The New England Patriots are set to take to a real-life football field Friday night at 7:30 p.m. against the Philadelphia Eagles. It will be the first glimpse of the team in action since they were eliminated from the playoffs by the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC Championship Game and will provide the first true indicators of what the team is going to look like heading into the 2013 season.

Until then, the team is doing its best to prepare and self-evaluate as training camp progresses, a challenge that has been made easier since the team opened up joint practices with the Eagles on Tuesday.

Wednesday, in talking with NFL Network's Albert Breer (as seen in the video below), Patriots quarterback Tom Brady discussed the impact of facing off against another team in practice and what differences really exist between practice and live reps in football.

"It's different when things are live and there's the threat of the run and the pass and they're hitting and they're blitzing, there's a big crowd watching and the juices get flowing," Brady said.

The one thing that most players and coaches say is drawn from the joint practices is that it works as an even better simulation of what players will have to do in an actual game situation while also giving them difference systems and personnel to adjust to. According to Brady, setting up practice as if it were an actual game is has been key so far.

"It's been competitive and I think we're trying to put ourselves in competitive situations so you can see what happens under game-like conditions," Brady said. "... We learned a lot from yesterday's practice. It's been fun to come out here and play against another team and see some different looks and we've had to make quite a few adjustments in fronts and the blitzes and the coverage and so forth."

In the team's first two days of practice with the Eagles, Brady has looked sharp, even for his standards. Meanwhile, the defense, particularly the secondary, has come out with a whole new swagger, as the groups attempts to shed its reputation that the weak link in New England.

On Friday, fans and coaches will get their first look at whether either of those practice trends translate into onfield success.